ray bradbury vacation full content. ray bradburyholidays

Ray Bradbury
Holidays
The day was fresh, the freshness of the grass that stretched up, the clouds that floated in the sky, the butterflies that settled on the grass. The day was woven from silence, but it was not mute at all, it was created by bees and flowers, land and ocean, everything that moved, fluttered, fluttered, rose and fell, obeying its own flow of time, its own unique rhythm. The edge was motionless, and everything moved. The sea was restless and the sea was silent. A paradox, a complete paradox, silence merged with silence, sound with sound. The flowers swayed and the bees fell on the clover in little cascades of golden rain. The waves of the hills and the waves of the ocean, two kinds of movement, were separated by a railway, deserted, built of rust and a steel core, a road that, at a glance, no trains ran for many years. Thirty miles to the north it wound, winding, then lost in the hazy distance; thirty miles to the south it pierced islands of flying shadows, which before our eyes shifted and changed their outlines on the slopes of distant mountains.
Suddenly the rails shook.
Sitting on the tracks, the lone thrush felt a steady, faint beat begin, as if somewhere, miles away, someone's heart was beating.
The blackbird soared over the sea.
The rails continued to tremble quietly, and at last a small trolley appeared around the bend, along the bank, went, in great silence, a two-cylinder engine snorted and rumbled.
On this small four-wheeled trolley, on a double bench turned in two directions, protected from the sun by a small awning, sat a man, his wife and a seven-year-old son. The trolley passed one deserted area after another, the wind beat in the eyes and fluttered the hair, but all three did not turn around and looked only ahead. Sometimes, at the exit of the turn, they looked impatiently, sometimes sadly, and all the time wary - what's next?
On a flat straight line, the engine suddenly coughed and fell silent. In the now crushing silence, it seemed that the calm radiating from the sea, earth and sky slowed down and stopped the rotation of the wheels.
- I ran out of gas.
The man, with a sigh, took out a spare canister from the narrow trunk and began pouring fuel into the tank.
His wife and son quietly looked at the sea, listened to muffled thunder, whispers, listened to how the mighty curtain of sand, pebbles, green algae, foam parted.
The sea is beautiful, isn't it? the woman said.
“I like it,” the boy said.
“Maybe we can make a halt and eat at the same time?”
The man aimed his binoculars at a green peninsula in the distance.
- Let's. The rails were heavily corroded. The path ahead is destroyed. Will have to wait until I fix it.
- How many burst rails, so many halts! the boy said.
The woman tried to smile, then turned her serious, inquisitive eyes on the man.
- How far have we traveled today?
“Ninety miles short. The man was still staring hard through the binoculars. - More, in my opinion, and it is not necessary to pass a day. When you drive, you do not have time to see anything. The day after tomorrow we'll be in Monterey, the next day, if you like, in Palo Alto.
The woman untied the bright yellow ribbons of her wide-brimmed straw hat, removed it from her golden hair, and, covered with a slight perspiration, stepped away from the car. They rode so long without stopping on the shaking trolley that their whole body was saturated with its smooth running. Now that the car had stopped, there was a strange feeling, as if the chains were about to be removed from them.
- Let's eat!
The boy ran to carry the basket of supplies to the shore. Mother and son were already sitting in front of the spread tablecloth when the man came down to them; he was wearing a formal suit with a waistcoat, a tie and a hat, as if he expected to meet someone on the way. As he handed out sandwiches and removed pickled vegetables from cool green jars, he gradually let go of his tie and unbuttoned his waistcoat, all the while looking around, as if ready to button up again at any second.
Are we alone, dad? the boy asked, still chewing.
- Yes.
“And no one else, nowhere?”
- No one else.
“Were there people in the world before?”
Why do you keep asking? It wasn't that long ago. Just a few months. You yourself remember.
- I don't remember well. And when I deliberately try to remember, I completely forget. The boy sifted a handful of sand between his fingers. “Were there as many people as there is sand on the beach here?” What happened to them?
“I don’t know,” the man replied, and it was true.
One fine morning they woke up and the world was empty. The clothesline of the neighbors hung, and the wind ruffled the dazzling white shirts, as always in the morning cars shone in front of the cottages, but no one could hear "goodbye", the powerful arteries of the city did not hum with traffic, telephones did not flinch from their own ringing, children did not scream in the sunflower thicket .
Only the night before he was sitting with his wife on the terrace when the evening paper was brought, and without even unfolding it, without looking at the headlines, he said:
– I wonder when we will get sick of him and he will sweep us all out?
“Yes, it’s come to this,” she said. - And you won't stop. How stupid are we, right?
“Wouldn’t it be great…” He lit his pipe. - Wake up tomorrow, and there is not a soul in the whole world, start all over again!
He sat and smoked, a folded newspaper in his hand, his head thrown back on the back of the chair.
If you could press a button like this right now, would you press it?
“Probably yes,” he replied. - No violence. Everything will just disappear from the face of the earth. Leave the land and the sea, and all that grows - flowers, grass, fruit trees. And let the animals stay too. Leave everything, except for a man who hunts when he is not hungry, eats when he is full, is cruel, although no one hurts him.
But we must stay. She smiled softly.
- It would be nice. He thought. - Ahead - as long as you want. The longest vacation in history. And us with a basket of supplies, and the longest picnic ever. Just you, me and Jim. No season tickets.
No need to reach for the Joneses. You don't even need a car. Think of some other way to travel, the old way. Take a basket of sandwiches, three bottles of pop, then, as needed, replenish stocks in deserted stores in deserted cities, and an endless summer lies ahead ...
For a long time they sat in silence on the terrace, a folded newspaper separating them.
Finally she said:
"Won't we get lonely?"
This is what the morning of the new world was like. They woke up and heard the soft sounds of the earth, which was now just a meadow, cities drowning in a sea of grass-ants, marigolds, daisies, bindweeds. At first they took it surprisingly calmly, probably because they had not loved the city for so many years and there were so many imaginary friends behind, and there was a closed life in solitude, in a mechanized hive.
The husband got out of bed, looked out the window and calmly, as if it was about the weather, remarked:
- All disappeared.
He knew it from the sounds the city no longer made.
They had breakfast slowly, because the boy was still sleeping, then the husband straightened up and said:
Now I need to figure out what to do.
- What to do? How...won't you go to work?
You still don't believe, do you? He laughed. “You don’t believe that I won’t jump out of the house every day at ten past eight, that Jim never has to go to school again. Everything, classes are over, for all of us are over! No more pencils, no more books, no more sour looks from the boss! We've been let go, honey, and we'll never go back to this stupid, damn, boring routine. Went!
And he led her through the empty and silent streets of the city.
“They didn't die,” he said. “Just…gone.”
What about other cities?
He went into a phone booth, dialed Chicago, then New York, then San Francisco. Silence. Silence. Silence.
“Everything,” he said, hanging up the phone.
“I feel guilty,” she said. They are gone, but we are. And ... I rejoice. Why? 'Cause I have to grieve.
- Must? There is no tragedy. They were not tortured, they were not burned, they were not tortured. They disappeared and did not feel it, did not recognize it. And now we are not obliged to anyone. We have one duty - to be happy. Thirty years of happiness ahead, is it bad?
“But…but then we need to have more kids?”
To repopulate the world? He shook his head slowly, calmly. - No. Let Jim be the last. When he gets old and dies, let the world belong to horses and cows, chipmunks and spiders. They won't be lost without us. And then someday another race, able to combine natural happiness with natural curiosity, will build cities completely different from ours, and will live on. Now let's put down the basket, wake up Jim, and start our 30 year vacation. Well, who will be the first to run home?
He took a sledgehammer from a small trolley, and while he fixed the rusty rails for half an hour, the woman and the boy ran along the shore. They returned with a handful of wet shells and wonderful pink pebbles, sat down, and the mother began to teach her son, and he wrote his homework with a pencil in a notebook, and at noon their father came down from the embankment, without a jacket, without a tie, and they drank orange pop, looking at how bubbles burst upwards in bottles, huddling together. There was silence. They listened to the sun adjust the old iron rails. The salty wind carried the smell of hot tar from the sleepers, and the man lightly tapped his pocket satin with his finger.
- In a month, in May, we will reach Sacramento, from there we will move to Seattle. We'll stay there until the first of July, July good month in Washington, then, when it gets colder, back to Yellowstone, a few miles a day, hunting here, fishing there ...
The boy became bored, he went to the very water and threw sticks into the sea, then he himself ran after them, portraying a learned dog.
The father continued:
- We winter in Tucson, at the very end of winter we go to Florida, in the spring - along the coast, in June we get, say, to New York. We spend the summer in Chicago in two years. Three years from now - how about spending the winter in Mexico City? Where the rails lead, anywhere, and if we attack a completely unknown old branch - excellent, we will go along it to the end, we will see where it leads. Someday, honestly, we'll take a boat down the Mississippi, I've been dreaming about it for a long time. Enough for a lifetime, not a route - a godsend ...
He is silent. He was about to slam the atlas shut with clumsy hands, but something bright flashed in the air and fell on the paper. It rolled down on the sand, and it turned out to be a wet lump.
The wife glanced at the wet speck and immediately turned her gaze to his face. His serious eyes glittered suspiciously. And a wet path ran down one cheek.
She gasped. She took his hand and squeezed it tightly.
He squeezed her hand and, closing his eyes, spoke through force:
- Well, really, if we went to bed in the evening, and at night everything somehow returned to its place. All the absurdities, noise and din, hatred, all horrors, all nightmares, evil people and stupid children, all this mess, pettiness, vanity, all hopes, aspirations and love. Wouldn't it be nice?
She thought, then nodded.
And then they both flinched.
Because between them (when did he come?), holding a pop bottle in his hand, stood their son.
The boy's face was pale. With his free hand, he touched his father's cheek where a tear had left a trail.
“You…” he said and sighed. - You ... Dad, you also have no one to play with.
The wife wanted to say something.
The husband wanted to take the boy's hand.
The boy jumped back.
- Fools! Fools! Silly fools! You fools, you fools!
He took off, ran to the sea and, standing by the water, burst into tears.
His mother wanted to follow him, but his father held her back.
- No need. Leave him alone.
At that point, they both froze. Because the boy on the shore, not ceasing to cry, wrote something on a piece of paper, put the piece into a bottle, corked it with an iron cap, took it tighter, swung it - and the bottle, describing a sharp shiny arc, fell into the sea.
What, she thought, did he write on the paper? What's in the bottle?
The bottle floated on the waves.
The boy stopped crying.
Then he moved away from the water and stopped near his parents, looking at them, his face was neither brightened, nor gloomy, nor alive, nor killed, nor decisive, nor detached, but some kind of bizarre mixture, as if he had come to terms with time, the elements and these people. . They looked at him, looked further, at the bay and a bright spark lost in the waves - a bottle in which there was a piece of paper with scribbles.
He wrote our wish? the woman thought.
Wrote what we just talked about, our dream?

In 1934, the Bradbury family moved to Los Angeles, where Ray lives to this day. The writer’s childhood and youth passed during the Great Depression, he had no funds for a university education, however, having decided to become a writer at almost 12 years old, Ray followed him with enviable persistence, never thinking about another profession. As a young man, he sold newspapers, then lived for several years at the expense of his wife, until his first major work, The Martian Chronicles, was finally published in 1950. Then, after writing Fahrenheit 451 in 1953, "(Fahrenheit 451) his fame grew to worldwide.

Ray Bradbury is often called the master of fantasy, one of the best writers- science fiction writers and the founder of many genre traditions. In fact, Bradbury is not a science fiction writer, since his work should be classified as “big”, non-genre literature, and he has only a small proportion of truly fantastic works. However, Bradbury is the recipient of several science fiction awards, in addition to numerous general literary awards.

Most of Bradbury's works are short stories of a non-entertaining nature, containing short sketches, reduced to dramatic, psychological moments, built mainly on dialogues, monologues, reflections of characters, rather than on action. Despite the obvious talent for inventing various plots, often entertaining and original, the writer often confines himself to plotless sketches.

Also, in almost none of the works of the writer can be convicted of moralizing and imposing his point of view: in 99% of the works, the author remains “behind the scenes”. The situation can develop arbitrarily biased, but Bradbury will never lead the reader to a conclusion. As if he sees his task in exciting the reader, exacerbating the situation and leaving, leaving him to think over the book.

Accordingly, without making the plot base absolute, Bradbury easily changes the styles and genres of his works. In the stories of the same year of writing, one can easily find science fiction, melodrama, detective story, fantasy, historical sketches, poetry, and so on.

Bradbury stands up for spiritual values and, above all, for fantasy and creativity. Almost the highest value Bradbury declares the inner world of man, his worldview, fantasy. The writer recognizes the ability of a person to feel, empathize with the main quality.

Ray Bradbury, 90, said:

"I don't like cars. I hate the Internet, I hate computers. They interfere with our lives, they take away our time. People work too much on computers, they talk too much, instead of listening and hearing each other."

Full text of the story "Vacation"

Foreword

The haunting, bewitching image of the devastated world in "Vacations" takes over the reader for a long time. Or maybe this grain remains somewhere on the edge of consciousness forever. A simple and criminal thought "But if ...".

In the story, the characters cross this line and a monstrous thought experiment unfolds. And again, so sincerely, calmly, without screams and pathos, Bradbury returns the ground under our feet to us. The story turns out to be simple and accessible, like a biblical parable.

The day was fresh, the freshness of the grass that stretched up, the clouds that floated in the sky, the butterflies that settled on the grass. The day was woven from silence, but it was not mute at all, it was created by bees and flowers, land and ocean, everything that moved, fluttered, fluttered, rose and fell, obeying its own flow of time, its own unique rhythm. The edge was motionless, and everything moved. The sea was restless and the sea was silent. A paradox, a complete paradox, silence merged with silence, sound with sound. The flowers swayed and the bees fell on the clover in little cascades of golden rain. The waves of the hills and the waves of the ocean, two kinds of movement, were separated by a railway, deserted, built of rust and a steel core, a road that, at a glance, no trains ran for many years. Thirty miles to the north it wound, winding, then lost in the hazy distance; thirty miles to the south it pierced islands of flying shadows, which before our eyes shifted and changed their outlines on the slopes of distant mountains.

Suddenly the rails shook.

Sitting on the tracks, the lone thrush felt a steady, faint beat begin, as if somewhere, miles away, someone's heart was beating.

The blackbird soared over the sea.

The rails continued to tremble quietly, and at last a small trolley appeared around the bend, along the bank, went, in great silence, a two-cylinder engine snorted and rumbled.

On this small four-wheeled trolley, on a double bench turned in two directions, protected from the sun by a small awning, sat a man, his wife and a seven-year-old son. The trolley passed one deserted area after another, the wind beat in the eyes and fluttered the hair, but all three did not turn around and looked only ahead. Sometimes, at the exit of the turn, they looked impatiently, sometimes sadly, and all the time wary - what's next?

On a flat straight line, the engine suddenly coughed and fell silent. In the now crushing silence, it seemed that the calm radiating from the sea, earth and sky slowed down and stopped the rotation of the wheels.

The gasoline has run out.

The man, with a sigh, took out a spare canister from the narrow trunk and began pouring fuel into the tank.

His wife and son quietly looked at the sea, listened to muffled thunder, whispers, listened to how the mighty curtain of sand, pebbles, green algae, foam parted.

The sea is beautiful, right? - said the woman.

I like it, said the boy.

Maybe we can make a halt and eat at the same time?

The man aimed his binoculars at a green peninsula in the distance.

Let's. The rails were heavily corroded. The path ahead is destroyed. Will have to wait until I fix it.

How many burst rails, so many halts! - said the boy.

The woman tried to smile, then turned her serious, inquisitive eyes on the man.

How far have we traveled today?

Less than ninety miles. The man was still staring hard through the binoculars. - More, in my opinion, and it is not necessary to pass a day. When you drive, you do not have time to see anything. The day after tomorrow we'll be in Monterey, the next day, if you like, in Palo Alto.

The woman untied the bright yellow ribbons of her wide-brimmed straw hat, removed it from her golden hair, and, covered with a slight perspiration, stepped away from the car. They rode so long without stopping on the shaking trolley that their whole body was saturated with its smooth running. Now that the car had stopped, there was a strange feeling, as if the chains were about to be removed from them.

Let's eat!

The boy ran to carry the basket of supplies to the shore. Mother and son were already sitting in front of the spread tablecloth when the man came down to them; he was wearing a formal suit with a waistcoat, a tie and a hat, as if he expected to meet someone on the way. As he handed out sandwiches and removed pickled vegetables from cool green jars, he gradually let go of his tie and unbuttoned his waistcoat, all the while looking around, as if ready to button up again at any second.

Are we alone, dad? the boy asked, still chewing.

Yes.

And no one else, anywhere?

No one else.

Were there people in the world before?

Why do you keep asking? It wasn't that long ago. Just a few months. You yourself remember.

I don't remember well. And when I deliberately try to remember, I completely forget. The boy sifted a handful of sand between his fingers. - Were there as many people as there is sand on the beach? What happened to them?

I don't know, the man replied, and it was true.

One fine morning they woke up and the world was empty. The clothesline of the neighbors hung, and the wind ruffled the dazzling white shirts, as always in the morning cars shone in front of the cottages, but no one could hear "goodbye", the powerful arteries of the city did not hum with traffic, telephones did not flinch from their own ringing, children did not scream in the sunflower thicket .

Only the night before he was sitting with his wife on the terrace when the evening paper was brought, and without even unfolding it, without looking at the headlines, he said:

I wonder when we'll get fed up with him and he'll sweep us all out?

Yes, it’s come to that, she said. - And you won't stop. How stupid are we, right?

And it would be wonderful ... - He lit his pipe. - Wake up tomorrow, and there is not a soul in the whole world, start all over again!

He sat and smoked, a folded newspaper in his hand, his head thrown back on the back of the chair.

If you could press a button like this now, would you press it?

Probably yes, he replied. - No violence. Everything will just disappear from the face of the earth. Leave the land and the sea, and all that grows - flowers, grass, fruit trees. And let the animals stay too. Leave everything, except for a man who hunts when he is not hungry, eats when he is full, is cruel, although no one hurts him.

But we must stay. She smiled softly.

It would be nice. - He thought. - Ahead - as long as you want. The longest vacation in history. And us with a basket of supplies, and the longest picnic ever. Just you, me and Jim. No season tickets.

No need to reach for the Joneses. You don't even need a car. Think of some other way to travel, the old way. Take a basket of sandwiches, three bottles of pop, then, as needed, replenish stocks in deserted shops in deserted cities, and an endless summer lies ahead...

For a long time they sat in silence on the terrace, a folded newspaper separating them.

Finally she said:

Will we not be lonely?

This is what the morning of the new world was like. They woke up and heard the soft sounds of the earth, which was now just a meadow, cities drowning in a sea of grass-ants, marigolds, daisies, bindweeds. At first they took it surprisingly calmly, probably because they had not loved the city for so many years and there were so many imaginary friends behind, and there was a closed life in solitude, in a mechanized hive.

The husband got out of bed, looked out the window and calmly, as if it was about the weather, remarked:

All have disappeared.

He knew it from the sounds the city no longer made.

They had breakfast slowly, because the boy was still sleeping, then the husband straightened up and said:

Now I have to figure out what to do.

What to do? How... aren't you going to work?

You still don't believe, do you? - He laughed. “You don’t believe that I won’t jump out of the house every day at ten past eight, that Jim never has to go to school again. Everything, classes are over, for all of us are over! No more pencils, no more books, no more sour looks from the boss! We've been let go, honey, and we'll never go back to this stupid, damn, boring routine. Went!

And he led her through the empty and silent streets of the city.

They didn't die, he said. - Just... gone.

What about other cities?

He went into a phone booth, dialed Chicago, then New York, then San Francisco. Silence. Silence. Silence.

Everything,” he said, hanging up the phone.

I feel guilty,” she said. They are gone, but we are. And... I rejoice. Why? 'Cause I have to grieve.

Must? There is no tragedy. They were not tortured, they were not burned, they were not tortured. They disappeared and did not feel it, did not recognize it. And now we are not obliged to anyone. We have one duty - to be happy. Thirty years of happiness ahead, is it bad?

But... but then we need to have more children?

To repopulate the world? He shook his head slowly, calmly. - No. Let Jim be the last. When he gets old and dies, let the world belong to horses and cows, chipmunks and spiders. They won't be lost without us. And then someday another race, able to combine natural happiness with natural curiosity, will build cities completely different from ours, and will live on. Now let's put down the basket, wake up Jim, and start our 30 year vacation. Well, who will be the first to run home?

He took a sledgehammer from a small trolley, and while he fixed the rusty rails for half an hour, the woman and the boy ran along the shore. They returned with a handful of wet shells and wonderful pink pebbles, sat down, and the mother began to teach her son, and he wrote his homework with a pencil in a notebook, and at noon their father came down from the embankment, without a jacket, without a tie, and they drank orange pop, looking at how bubbles burst upwards in bottles, huddling together. There was silence. They listened to the sun adjust the old iron rails. The salty wind carried the smell of hot tar from the sleepers, and the man lightly tapped his pocket satin with his finger.

In a month, in May, we will reach Sacramento, from there we will move to Seattle. We'll stay there until the first of July, July is a good month in Washington, then when it gets colder, back to Yellowstone, a few miles a day, hunting here, fishing there...

The boy became bored, he went to the very water and threw sticks into the sea, then he himself ran after them, portraying a learned dog.

The father continued:

We winter in Tucson, at the very end of winter we go to Florida, in the spring - along the coast, in June we get, say, to New York. We spend the summer in Chicago in two years. Three years from now - how about spending the winter in Mexico City? Wherever the rails lead, anywhere, and if we attack a completely unknown old branch - excellent, we will go along it to the end, we will see where it leads. Someday, honestly, we'll take a boat down the Mississippi, I've been dreaming about it for a long time. Enough for a lifetime, not a route - a godsend ...

He is silent. He was about to slam the atlas shut with clumsy hands, but something bright flashed in the air and fell on the paper. It rolled down on the sand, and it turned out to be a wet lump.

The wife glanced at the wet speck and immediately turned her gaze to his face. His serious eyes glittered suspiciously. And a wet path ran down one cheek.

She gasped. She took his hand and squeezed it tightly.

He squeezed her hand and, closing his eyes, spoke through force:

Well, really, if we went to bed in the evening, and at night everything somehow returned to its place. All the absurdities, noise and din, hatred, all horrors, all nightmares, evil people and stupid children, all this mess, pettiness, vanity, all hopes, aspirations and love. Wouldn't it be nice?

She thought, then nodded.

And then they both flinched.

Because between them (when did he come?), holding a pop bottle in his hand, stood their son.

The boy's face was pale. With his free hand, he touched his father's cheek where a tear had left a trail.

You…” he said and sighed. - You... Dad, you don't have anyone to play with either.

The wife wanted to say something.

The husband wanted to take the boy's hand.

The boy jumped back.

Fools! Fools! Silly fools! You fools, you fools!

He took off, ran to the sea and, standing by the water, burst into tears.

His mother wanted to follow him, but his father held her back.

No need. Leave him alone.

At that point, they both froze. Because the boy on the shore, not ceasing to cry, wrote something on a piece of paper, put the piece into a bottle, corked it with an iron cap, took it tighter, swung it - and the bottle, describing a sharp shiny arc, fell into the sea.

What, she thought, did he write on the paper? What's in the bottle?

The bottle floated on the waves.

The boy stopped crying.

Then he moved away from the water and stopped near his parents, looking at them, his face was neither brightened, nor gloomy, nor alive, nor killed, nor decisive, nor detached, but some kind of bizarre mixture, as if he had come to terms with time, the elements and these people. . They looked at him, looked further, at the bay and a bright spark lost in the waves - a bottle in which lay a piece of paper with scribbles.

He wrote our wish? thought the woman.

Wrote what we just talked about, our dream?

Or he wrote something of his own, wished for himself one thing to wake up tomorrow morning - and he was alone in a deserted world, no one else, no man, no woman, no father, no mother, no stupid adults with their stupid desires, went to the rails and he himself, alone, led the trolley across the wild continent, alone set off on an endless journey, and where he wanted - there was a halt.

Is it or isn't it? Ours or theirs?

She looked for a long time into his expressionless eyes, but did not read the answer, and did not dare to ask.

The shadows of seagulls hovered in the air, covering their faces with fleeting coolness.

It's time to go, someone said.

They placed the basket on the platform. The woman tied her hat tightly to her hair with a yellow ribbon, the shells were piled on boards, the husband put on a tie, waistcoat, jacket and hat, and all three sat on a bench, looking out to sea - there, far away, at the very horizon, a bottle with a note gleamed.

If you ask, will it come true? the boy asked. - If you guess, will it come true?

Sometimes it comes true ... even too much.

Watch what you ask.

The boy nodded, his thoughts were far away.

They looked back to where they came from, then forward to where they were going.

Goodbye, shore, - the boy said and waved his hand.

The trolley rolled along the rusty rails. Her hum died and disappeared. Far away, among the hills, a woman, a man, a boy disappeared with her.

When they disappeared, the rails rattled softly for about two minutes, then fell silent. A rusty flake fell off. The flower nodded.

The sea was very noisy.
Full text: http://raybradbury.ru/library/story/63/5/1/

Tell me about your impression of the story?

How is a fantasy story different from a fairy tale?

Current page: 1 (total book has 1 pages)

Ray Bradbury
Holidays

Suddenly the rails shook.

Sitting on the tracks, the lone thrush felt a steady, faint beat begin, as if somewhere, miles away, someone's heart was beating.

The blackbird soared over the sea.

The rails continued to tremble quietly, and at last a small trolley appeared around the bend, along the bank, went, in great silence, a two-cylinder engine snorted and rumbled.

- I ran out of gas.

The man, with a sigh, took out a spare canister from the narrow trunk and began pouring fuel into the tank.

His wife and son quietly looked at the sea, listened to muffled thunder, whispers, listened to how the mighty curtain of sand, pebbles, green algae, foam parted.

The sea is beautiful, isn't it? the woman said.

“I like it,” the boy said.

“Maybe we can make a halt and eat at the same time?”

The man aimed his binoculars at a green peninsula in the distance.

– Come on

end of introduction

Holidays

Suddenly the rails shook.

Sitting on the tracks, the lone thrush felt a steady, faint beat begin, as if somewhere, miles away, someone's heart was beating.

The blackbird soared over the sea.

The rails continued to tremble quietly, and at last a small trolley appeared around the bend, along the bank, went, in great silence, a two-cylinder engine snorted and rumbled.

- I ran out of gas.

The man, with a sigh, took out a spare canister from the narrow trunk and began pouring fuel into the tank.

His wife and son quietly looked at the sea, listened to muffled thunder, whispers, listened to how the mighty curtain of sand, pebbles, green algae, foam parted.

The sea is beautiful, isn't it? the woman said.

“I like it,” the boy said.

“Maybe we can make a halt and eat at the same time?”

The man aimed his binoculars at a green peninsula in the distance.

- Let's. The rails were heavily corroded. The path ahead is destroyed. Will have to wait until I fix it.

- How many burst rails, so many halts! the boy said.

The woman tried to smile, then turned her serious, inquisitive eyes on the man.

- How far have we traveled today?

“Ninety miles short. The man was still staring hard through the binoculars. - More, in my opinion, and it is not necessary to pass a day. When you drive, you do not have time to see anything. The day after tomorrow we'll be in Monterey, the next day, if you like, in Palo Alto.

- Let's eat!

Are we alone, dad? the boy asked, still chewing.

“And no one else, nowhere?”

- No one else.

“Were there people in the world before?”

Why do you keep asking? It wasn't that long ago. Just a few months. You yourself remember.

- I don't remember well. And when I deliberately try to remember, I completely forget. The boy sifted a handful of sand between his fingers. “Were there as many people as there is sand on the beach here?” What happened to them?

“I don’t know,” the man replied, and it was true.

Only the night before he was sitting with his wife on the terrace when the evening paper was brought, and without even unfolding it, without looking at the headlines, he said:

– I wonder when we will get sick of him and he will sweep us all out?

“Yes, it’s come to this,” she said. - And you won't stop. How stupid are we, right?

“Wouldn’t it be great…” He lit his pipe. - Wake up tomorrow, and there is not a soul in the whole world, start all over again!

He sat and smoked, a folded newspaper in his hand, his head thrown back on the back of the chair.

If you could press a button like this right now, would you press it?

“Probably yes,” he replied. - No violence. Everything will just disappear from the face of the earth. Leave the land and the sea, and all that grows - flowers, grass, fruit trees. And let the animals stay too. Leave everything, except for a man who hunts when he is not hungry, eats when he is full, is cruel, although no one hurts him.

But we must stay. She smiled softly.

- It would be nice. He thought. - Ahead - as long as you want. The longest vacation in history. And us with a basket of supplies, and the longest picnic ever. Just you, me and Jim. No season tickets.

No need to reach for the Joneses. You don't even need a car. Think of some other way to travel, the old way. Take a basket of sandwiches, three bottles of pop, then, as needed, replenish stocks in deserted stores in deserted cities, and an endless summer lies ahead ...

American writer Ray Bradbury is one of the authors who were able to turn science fiction into art. In his novels and even short stories Bradbury always touches on many of the most important topics for everyone. The work “Vacation”, the genre of which can be defined as a dystopia, shows readers what is scary about loneliness, the lack of clear life plans, and why communication and the ability to find mutual language with those around you.

Problems of the story

The work of Ray Bradbury "Vacation" describes the possibility of life on earth without people. The main idea is "Fear your desires, they can come true." The writer tried to consider the following tasks with his work:

inability to set certain goals;
excessive communication with people;
loneliness, boredom.

The protagonist wished for himself a certain development of events, but when it happened, he did not know what to do next and how to manage the opportunity given to him.

Bradbury reminds his readers that although there are many people on earth who want to be completely alone, they have no idea what to do later when the desire is fulfilled. In the story, the writer touches on many problems of his time. The reader sees that the main characters, who fulfilled their dream, did not become happier. What they dreamed of brought them awareness of their bitter fate.

For modern man surroundings are not always pleasant and desirable, habitual activities cause boredom. The writer is trying to convey to his readers that without certain foundations and principles, the existence of society is impossible. Creativity Bradbury helps a person to understand their essence and purpose in this world.

The main characters of the story are a husband and wife and their little son. Left alone in the whole world, they travel, stopping periodically. The writer tells us about their experiences and aspirations.

The story begins with a description of a beautiful summer morning, fresh and sunny. Clouds floated, butterflies and dragonflies flew, there was a smell of flowers and herbs. By railway a handcar is moving, on which a husband and wife and their seven-year-old son are sitting. When gasoline ran out, travelers were forced to stop for a halt.

The boy constantly asks his parents where all the people have gone. From the words of a man and a woman, it turns out that one morning the father made a wish that all people on earth disappear, and they could only rest with their families. The man dreamed that there would be no work, bosses, noisy environment, some obligations and other things. There would be constant summer around them.

The next morning they woke up and their wish was granted. People disappeared, cities were overgrown with grass and flowers, birds sang, and the sounds of machines and mechanisms fell silent. After breakfast, the wife was afraid that her husband was not going to work. She still did not fully believe that, indeed, there was no one. The man laughed and happily said that he would never see a disgruntled boss and flattering employees again. According to him, they now owe nothing to anyone, their duty is to be happy. Thus began their lonely 30-year vacation.

The wife believed that they needed to have more children, but the husband said that their son would be the last person on earth. Then the world will belong to animals, birds and plants. Perhaps then another kind of creatures will arise that will combine natural curiosity with natural happiness and build a different world. The family gathers and goes on an endless journey through deserted cities.

The boy's mother blames herself a little for the disappearance of people, but her husband reassures her, saying that they did not experience torment, they just disappeared and that's it. After resting, the family decides to move on. The father takes the atlas to pave further way, and then his wife sees a tear fall on the paper. The man cannot stand it and says that he really wants people to return to the world, and everything was as before.

The boy hears the conversation of his parents and also begins to cry. He runs away to the sea, and there he writes his desire on paper, seals it in a bottle and throws it into the water. Parents do not know what he wrote about. The family again continues its difficult lonely route through deserted world.

Conclusions from Bradbury's story

Bradbury's book "Vacations" vividly demonstrates the desperation of people who have not coped with their desires. The child does not want a repetition of the fate of his parents, he wants to return the world to its previous state.

Because of their haste, people found themselves in complete isolation and the long-awaited vacation became a tedious expectation of meeting with any person. The father of the family put on a formal suit and hat for the trip, as if he was constantly waiting for a meeting with people who had previously been unpleasant to him. But he realized that it was impossible to live alone. Making his wish, he did not think what would happen next. He didn't even care what it would be like for his son when he was the only inhabitant of the earth. Now the man has an epiphany.

The writer, by his narrative, makes it clear that a person cannot exist alone. To live, we all need:

society;
moral principles;
foundations, traditions.

Even if the people around us are not always pleasant to us, we must adapt and take into account the interests of others. "Vacation" speaks of the mental suffering of adults and children. The father worries about his stupid desire, and the boy understands that adults can also be wrong. He wants to correct the mistakes of his father and makes efforts for this.

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Full text of the story "Vacation"

Ray Bradbury Holidays

Problems of the story

Conclusions from Bradbury's story

Ray Bradbury
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